Dueling Editorials

Those intellectual relativists at The Toledo, Ohio, Block Bugler label the case of two members of the New Black Panther Party who allegedly intimidated voters at a Philadelphia polling place last November as "a silly nonevent by two nobodies." Both were dressed in paramilitary outfits. One wielded a billy club. We can't wait to see how The Bugler characterizes, say, members of the tea party movement showing up at the polls this November with — GASP! — petitions. You can bet it'll be called a "civil rights travesty."

And this is the P-G editorial they found so upsetting. It begins with this:

To hear conservatives complain about the Obama Justice Department these days, you'd think Attorney General Eric Holder had declared war on the civil rights of white Americans.

Recently, J. Christian Adams, a former lawyer for the Bush Justice Department, accused the civil rights division under Mr. Obama and Mr. Holder of scaling down a voter intimidation case in Philadelphia because the accused were black and potential victims white.

Two members of the New Black Panther Party stood outside a North Philly polling place on Election Day 2008 in paramilitary garb. One of the two brandished a billy club looking vaguely menacing, but mostly silly.

And then they offer up some facts:

The men stood outside the predominantly black polling center for a short time before cops sent them on their way. One of the men is alleged to have said something insulting about white people. Neither was arrested.

Whah? The cops showed up? And didn't arrest either?

That proves it. The police department of the city of Philadelphia must be in on the conspiracy - a conspiracy to intimidate white voters at a predominantly black polling center.

The Bush administration's Justice Department -- not the Obama administration -- made the decision not to pursue criminal charges against members of the New Black Panther Party for alleged voter intimidation at a polling center in Philadelphia in 2008

That's right, my friends. And think about it. Who was the president in November 2008? Whatever the outcome of the election, the inauguration wouldn't take place until about 3 months later.

After reviewing the matter, the Civil Rights Division determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes. The Department did, however, file a civil action on January 7th, 2009, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief under 11(b) against four defendants.

So the Bush DOJ must also be a part of the criminal conspiracy to intimidate white voters at a predominantly black polling center.

14 comments:

The Bush DOJ decided there wasn't enough evidence.Weigel, Rest of the Left Change the Facts on the New Black Panther CaseWell, the obvious flaw with this line of reasoning is that it was the dismissal of the civil case that caused an uproar and started the US Commission on Civil Rights sniffing around.Of course this is the same BUSH DOJ (or the Democratic hacks in it) that withheld evidence in the Ted Stevens case.

The police handle stuff like this outside polling places all the time. The only difference is someone posted a picture of it. Ask the Sheriff's department (Who handles that stuff in Allegheny County.) how many times they get called out during a typical election day. You will be surprised.

In November, when some right-wing nut job shows up outside a polling place with an assault rifle, how many of you will just say he is expressing his First and Second Amendment Rights when he refuses to leave like these two did.

By the way, it must be recycling time in the Republican Party. A friend of mine just recycled that debunked picture of Obama in an elementary school gym with teleprompters from last year.

What I said was, the police arrived. The men in question left. What is there to investigate?

And, cm, this wasn't a bank robbery. A much more accurate analogy would be 2 men standing close to the entrance to the Giant Eagle. Maybe they look menacing, and customers complain. The cops arrive, and ask the men to move along. They do.

End of story.

Unless, of course, Fox News gets it, of course. Last year, about this time, wasn't the big, and completely manufactured, outrage the school in NJ that had students sing a song about Obama?

Here's one way to stop this; eliminate ALL "electioneering" from within 500 feet of the entrance to a polling place.

I was shocked when I originally move there from NYS, to find all these people shoving pamphlets in my face when I went to vote. In NYS, you had to be much further away, so that it never became an issue. Of course, neither side will probably ever want to give up this presumed perk, and I'm sure there is some First Amendment issue -- but it would make voting a whole lot better for everyone.